


I'll Always Be Here

by tuetombe



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, Mind Control, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:48:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5289572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuetombe/pseuds/tuetombe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, hey,” Malcolm comforts, speaking quietly and turning away from Ruben to face her. He stepped towards her and put his hands on her unsteady shoulders in an attempt to ground her; keep her calm, make her see reason, keep the screams and hysteria tucked away in the depths of her mind. “You have not killed anyone, alright?”</p>
<p>She nodded her understanding, her breathing beginning to slow.</p>
<p>“Yes, but I have,” Kilgrave says plainly, a smirk gracing his lips as he stepped into Jessica’s bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Always Be Here

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in years. Almost 4 I believe? This is a stretching exercise for me, since I've only written non-fiction and essay dismemberments since then. 
> 
> Jessica Jones was a hard show for me to watch. The way that they portrayed PTSD resonated really closely with my personal experience in an abusive relationshit, and I had to take frequent breaks because I would become so anxious. It kills me that this is a genre I love; a show full of wonderful acting and story, that I can't comfortably watch. This is a fuck you to the impotent little bastard that terrorised me for 2 years. 
> 
> Please mind the tags. Kilgrave was aptly described as a walking trigger by theimpossibledream, and I have to agree with them. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

She drifted in and out of the void of consciousness. The elevator dinged politely, its first bright sound since it had arrived for her last night in the empty lobby. Technically earlier this morning, but she couldn’t care less. Slumped against the elevator wall, one leg bent and the other straight in front of her weary body; a bag crumpled up on the floor beside her left hand. She opened tired eyes to see Malcolm, dressed up like one of those trendy hipster things that go to dance classes and Instagram every meal they eat.

"Well, how long have you been here?" he queries, leaning against the grimy elevator door. Jessica tries not to move her head; it was still reeling from the couple drinks she had had last night. More than a couple. She reeked of the trash pile she’d been thrown into outside that dive last night. Goddamn asshole, she had been ready to leave that dirty excuse for a bar to deal with Wendy anyways.

"Jazzercize?" she retorts, tired from her escapade with Wendy and the 2. And the lack of comfort provided by the dirty floor of the elevator. Does anyone ever clean this shit? Still better than passing out in an alley; exposed to the elements, both natural and criminal. Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t a bad place, but it most certainly wasn’t the safest at night when one is filled to their ears with cheap alcohol, or flying on adrenaline high from a close encounter with a subway train and its tired driver. Let alone the ex-wife of a blood-leaking demon, rather the stubborn woman who married one of New York City’s finest defenders.

Malcolm sighed, grabbing her right arm to pull her up off of the floor. She groaned as she stood up, the sudden change in altitude making her head pound harder. A wave of nausea rolled over her like the clouds roll over the skyline of Hell’s Kitchen at dusk. Malcolm stepped behind her to hold her upright and steady as they stepped out of the elevator. The harsh light and metallic stink of the elevator was left behind, exchanged for dirty tile and the musk of an old building. The yellowed lamps filtered down through dust-covered lampshades overhead, creating an aura of bleakness and yearning for times long past.

"Running actually helps with sobriety," Malcolm tells her while he walked, and she staggered, back to her small apartment. Jessica would’ve been on the old tile floor if not for Malcolm’s arm linked with hers. For a recovering addict, he was able to hold Jessica upright fairly well. It was due time for him to return the favour to her. He couldn’t count the times that Jessica had made sure that he made it back into his empty apartment safely. He would be grateful to her for a long time for helping him detox too.

"Sobriety blows," she replied, feeling dejected. Couldn’t even walk straight, and she forgot her bag in the elevator. Damnit. She bumped into the wall in her drunken stumbling, thank God it wasn’t someone’s door. That would’ve been a fun wake-up call for my neighbours. The arm that wasn’t anchored to Malcolm flopped around like one of the old wooden snakes she had played with when she was young. She didn’t feel young though, hungover and leaning on a neighbour because she couldn’t make it 15 feet down a straight hallway.

“You’re a real inspiration,” Malcolm huffed, pulling his athletic headband out of his bouncy hair to hold in his hand. She experienced a moment of regret; Malcolm could be out doing something that would help him cope with the damage Kilgrave had done to him. Something he never would have had to cope with if he hadn’t been near her. She brushed the thought away, as they continued down the hallway. The lights hurt her eyes and the swaying of her intoxicated body pained her neck, so she settled on watching where the floor met the wall. That should help her balance, give her a better sense of where up is. Jesus, even the tile was ugly. Some Greek or art whatever crap that’s meant to make her feel like she’s not living in a dump. She was certain this place was hot shit when it was first built, but it definitely wasn’t hot shit now.

Malcolm unlocked the door to Alias Investigations, and led her inside. She staggered forward, kicking a poorly placed box that had been left on the floor. Malcolm quietly warned her to be careful, and quickly bent down to move it out of the way. She could clean this shit up later. She needed to sleep, then have another drink. Jessica struggled to stay standing as she dropped her coat, hearing the empty thud as the supple leather made contact with the floor. She leaned against the wall for support as she unzipped her boots, piling them beside the coat with the same lack of ceremony.

"What you need," began Malcolm, runners padding dully on the floor as he walked into the sparsely decorated kitchen, "is some electrolytes and something solid in your stomach." He saw a loaf of banana bread on the table. He took milliseconds to contemplate it, before lifting the crinkled plastic wrap to pull off a corner of the moist loaf. Popping it into his mouth and chewing, he made a noise of contentment. It tasted delicious, and was obviously quite fresh. He licked his digits clean of the oily goodness, then opened the robin’s egg blue cupboard over the bland white sink to retrieve a glass.

Jessica pulled off her gloves and added them to the growing pile of black outerwear, and made her way into the bedroom. She grunted as she rolled the thin, grey sweater off of her agile body and threw it towards the peeling Davy’s gray wall, making it the first in a new pile of clothing, soon to be littering the floor.

She rolled onto the glaucous sheeted bed, relishing the feeling of her body sinking into the soft mattress after so long on the floor. She exhaled, finally ready to purge the bullshit of the past day with a nice, long nap. She stirred after only a moment though, her arm feeling damp. She hadn’t noticed anything, and her sweater and coat had seemed intact when they had been discarded; not that she had been paying much attention to the state of her clothes. She looked down at her arm, perhaps it had fallen asleep? Maybe she spilled something on the dingy bed earlier and hadn’t cleaned it up? She inhaled sharply at the right of fresh blood. Shit, where had that come from? She rolled over and saw a familiar face, but it was much too pale. Jessica gasped, sitting up and scooting away from him. From Ruben. The nice kid with the kinky bitch sister. She jumped off of the bed, the adrenaline jolting her awake as her body prepared itself to flee whoever or whatever the fuck had done this to her innocent neighbour.

Jessica propelled herself out of the bed, leaning on the wall for support. Feeling his blood, Ruben’s blood, sticking to her hands, covering her arm. She finally saw how much blood there was. The rancid smell of freshly spilled blood met her nose; for a moment she wasn’t Jessica. She was Jessie, the fourteen year old girl who had just broken her spaz little brother’s gameboy in the car. The screech of the car’s frame hitting the back end of the truck wailed in her ears. It wasn’t Ruben lying in her bed, it was Phillip.

She returned to herself just as quickly, God, this poor kid was dead, and in her fucking bed. She shuddered and slid down the wall, her hair catching on the sticky blood that her shoulder had left behind. She couldn’t think anymore. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t look away. Another body she was responsible for. Another life lost. Another little brother. Another person, all alone in the world.

Jessica Jones looked down at her hands, sticky and covered in Ruben’s bright red arterial blood. Still warm on her hands, fresh enough that the iron hadn’t oxidized it into a deeper shade of red. He was still holding the knife in his right hand. Pulled from left to right; carotid, jugular, trachea, larynx, Adam’s apple. His waist was hidden under the sheets, but his sock-and-sandal covered feet stuck out at the bottom, rigor mortis had already set in. His eyes, his eyes, were still open.

Malcolm entered the bedroom, and looks at Jessica for a moment, puzzled as to why she was crouched on the floor, breathing in such a sallow manner. She doesn’t see when he sees Ruben; rather she hears it. Malcolm dropped the glass, letting it shatter to bits in the doorway. She returned to the car; the screeching of the metal had ended, and was followed by the slow cracking of the tempered glass, before it shattered, flying towards her in the backseat. She closed her eyes, and opened them in her bedroom. Shattered, like Robyn will be when she hears her brother is dead.

"Jesus Christ! Holy Jesus Christ! He's dead. That's-That's his dead body. That's Ruben.” Malcolm exclaims, runner-clad feet planted in shock under the faded white doorframe. He didn’t shake nor run, though anyone else would have in the same situation. Standing plainly in workout gear, looking at the strongest woman he knew on the floor, and the corpse of his neighbour on the bed. Almost as if he was sleeping, but for his eyes. Malcolm felt a chill run down his spine.

Jessica pushed herself off of the floor with conviction, gripping the bland dresser for support. She looked for the shards of the glass Malcolm had dropped, but her eyes were drawn to a bloody footprint on her rug. Bloody is right, that goddamn interfering bastard. Wearing his preppy little Oxfords, making sure to leave evidence of his involvement for her. It sickened her.

“Kilgrave,” she stuttered, hobbling towards it on unsteady feet. “He was here. He made Ruben…” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit that Ruben was dead because of her. Because of Kilgrave. She leaned against the wall, overwhelmed by the shock and her tiredness. Her hand slid over her mouth, covering her gaping, trembling red lips.  

“Oh my God, poor Ruben,” Malcolm says, quietly stepping towards the bed that cradled the rapidly cooling corpse of his former neighbour. “Oh, man, his poor sister, I just…” Remorse ghosted over his face for a short moment, before it was replaced by concern for the other living person in the room.

“I can’t. I can’t, I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t keep fighting him.” The hysteria bubbled out of her mouth, she could no longer control it. She clutched her abdomen, feeling like her fluttering heart was sliding out of her chest and that she would die if she didn’t hold it in. She couldn’t stand still; if she stopped moving, her heart would stop beating. “I can’t fight him! I can’t do this!” she wailed, taking up her spot against the wall once again.

“Hey, hey,” Malcolm comforts, speaking quietly and turning away from Ruben to face her. He stepped towards her and put his hands on her unsteady shoulders in an attempt to ground her; keep her calm, make her see reason, keep the screams and hysteria tucked away in the depths of her mind. “You have not killed anyone, alright?”

She breathed deeply, trying to use the strength Malcolm was giving her to calm down. She nodded her understanding, her breathing beginning to slow. Her racing mind calmed as logic broke through the panicked facade her mind had erected. She had one of the best lawyers in New York City working for her. She had Malcolm, Luke, and Trish on her side.

“Yes, but I have,” Kilgrave says plainly, a smirk gracing his lips as he stepped into Jessica’s bedroom.

Jessica couldn’t hold in the shriek that escaped her lips. He was here, in the same room as she was. She felt control slipping through her fingers, yet only four words had left his bastard lips. Her chest seized up; halting any hope she had had for regular breathing. He was going to kill Malcolm, make her watch, and then kill her. At least, that was what she hoped for. She couldn’t survive under his control again.

“Really, Jessica? You’ve never seen a dead body before? Well, of course you have, you took care of Reva for me! Do shut up, though,” he tells her, touching her top lip with a light touch. He steps farther into the small room, invading the space with his demeanour of depravity. “Not very good looking, was he?” He stretched his lithe neck back and wiggled his shoulders. The vertebrae in his spine popped, the sickening sound filling the small room, breaking the quiet of Jessica and Malcolm’s breathing.

Jessica tried to respond, but her tongue was made of lead and her lips were woven together tightly as flesh. Tried to scream for help. Tried to tell Malcolm to run. Tried to tell him to shove a knife up his ass. To leave her alone; leave her safe, away from him and his control.

“He made you some banana shit, and interrogated me about why I was in your apartment,” Kilgrave told Jessica quietly, reaching out to touch Ruben’s pallid cheek with the back of his hand. “He told me he loved you. A disgusting little worm like this doesn’t deserve my beautiful Jessica! ”

She dissolved into tears, struggling to breathe as the world collapsed around her. Her lips relaxed the more she struggled to breathe the rancid air, forcing her to stay present in the room with this controlling psychopath.

“And we just couldn’t have that, could we now?” he finished, stepping back towards her. “Oy, you!” Kilgrave exclaimed, looking towards Malcolm with venom in his eyes. “Grab that knife from the bloke on the bed and join him in hell, won’t you?”

Jessica scrambled to her knees, rushing towards Kilgrave. She reached for his hand, hoping that the contact him would sate his bloodlust, distract him, anything. In her focus, she failed to see the other hand’s trajectory, which intersected with her face. She fell, the right side of her face stinging as the left half of her body impacted the rug. She struggled to right herself, but a hand on her right shoulder stilled her, not pushing her into the ground, but applying enough pressure to prevent movement. Kilgrave was on one knee beside her, looming over her prone form.

“You can’t fight me darling, you said so yourself,” he intoned with a soft voice. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.” He sat down beside her, leaning his back on her dresser; he pulled her head into his lap and began to stroke her soft ebony hair. Jessica’s trembling did not cease with his comfort, rather increasing when she heard Malcolm’s short gasp, and subsequent sputtering as he slit his throat efficiently, mirroring Ruben who lay resting beside him.

“Close your eyes and sleep. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

Lying in a psychopath’s lap with two of her friends’ corpses cooling on her bed, Jessica’s eyes closed, and she was swallowed into a dark, dreamless void.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hell's Kitchen is actually a very safe neighbourhood, according to a friend of mine who has spent extensive time there at night while very drunk. However, in the MCU, Hell's kitchen was destroyed in the Battle of New York, and has been referred to as not such a nice place. 
> 
> 'The 2' refers to the scene where Jessica and Wendy had the altercation at the beginning of episode 7. I think that they were at Houston station, which is served by the 2 line late at night.
> 
> This is currently not proofread or beta'd, I wanted to post this now and I'm an impatient little child. I expect to post some minor edits to this chapter as I work through the next one. 
> 
> Your patronage is deeply appreciated.


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